When, in the summer of 2011, the Port Authority unveiled a plan for massive toll hikes on its bridges and tunnels, a lot of people, including this page, suspected that the announcement was a ploy.

After all, there was no way the P.A. could persuade the New York and New Jersey governors to ever approve an increase in the base toll from $8 to $15 and the toll for E-ZPass customers with the Staten Island Bridges discount from $80 a month to $120 a month.

And right on cue, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said when told of the P.A.’s outrageous request, “You’re kidding, right?”

As if he had never had any inkling of the agency’s toll plan when his own appointees serve in the P.A. leadership.

As if the authority would ever have gone public with the toll increase announcement without his approval.

But that’s what was on the table in August 2011. The P.A. claimed it needed all that extra money because of the recession, the increased costs of rebuilding the World Trade Center and to fund “the largest overhaul of facilities” in its 90-year history.

Staten Islanders and millions around the metropolitan area who use Port Authority bridges and tunnels could only dread the imminent price-gouging and hope against hope that the two governors would step in to kill the plan.

Instead, Messrs. Cuomo and Christie lectured the public on the importance of the P.A.’s mission and the high cost of its operation. Meanwhile, the authority scheduled required public hearings on the toll increase — but in the early morning and late evenings at remote locations. Of course, the audience was made up primarily of union members who showed up to support the increase that would mean more work for them.

Eventually, right on schedule, the governors called on the authority to scale back its plan. The new version that was passed by the P.A. board of governors called for smaller increases, but phased in over three years. So by the year 2015, E-ZPass users will be paying more per trip than what the Port Authority originally sought in any case.

Nonetheless, the governors smiled upon the revision, saying in a joint statement that it was “a responsible alternative that balances the infrastructure needs of the region with toll-and fare-payers’ economic realities.”

And so here we are, paying through the nose despite the governors’ rhetoric.

But a recent report in the Star-Ledger of Newark provides compelling evidence that the whole toll hike farce was choreographed from the start. The P.A. called for outlandish rate hikes knowing full well they’d never get them all at once, and the governors, after sternly dressing down the P.A. for its spending and calling for a top-to-bottom financial review of the agency, got to wear white hats and ride to the rescue.

And in the long run, drivers are paying more anyway.

A former Port Authority official told The Star-Ledger, “It was all b------t.”

Another said, “They knew what the toll increase would be. They set the governors up to look like heroes. It was all a farce.”

According to the Ledger, agency officials were sworn to secrecy with the understanding that publicly disclosing this deception could cost them their jobs.

The Bergen Record has also probed the shenanigans and it reported a source saying, “Christie instructed the Port Authority officials to float the immediate $4 hike, and that he and Cuomo would reduce it to $2.”

And, according to the Record, Chris Ward, the New York-appointed executive director of the agency at the time, was kept out of the “War Room” where this farce was planned, as were other key agency professionals. Apparently, this was all about politics.

And here’s the kicker: The toll hike conspiracy appears to have been orchestrated by many of the same officials who are alleged to have orchestrated the September, 2013, lane closures at the George Washington Bridge — i.e. “Bridgegate.”

That is why the toll hike machinations now have come under the scrutiny of a New Jersey state legislative committee, which recently began a highly publicized investigation of “Bridgegate.”

The governors will undoubtedly survive this scandal and the P.A. will get its additional revenue, just as planned. But never again will toll-payers take the agency at its word when it comes to tolls.